Creating user communities with active element manager

ABSTRACT

Described are techniques for performing data storage system management of a data storage system. An active element manager component is provided that performs data storage system management operations. Using the active element management component, context information is collected. User relevant information is received by the active element manager component. The user relevant information includes information about a virtual user community relevant to a first user identifier. For an active element management session having the first user identifier, the user relevant information is displayed via a user interface. The user interface provides for display a first portion of the user relevant information about the virtual user community and a first connection to the external environment. Upon selection of the first portion, the active element manager component connects to a target location associated with the virtual user community and provides the context information to the external environment.

BACKGROUND

1. Technical Field

This application generally relates to data storage, and moreparticularly to techniques used for data storage management.

2. Description of Related Art

Computer systems may include different resources used by one or morehost processors. Resources and host processors in a computer system maybe interconnected by one or more communication connections. Theseresources may include, for example, data storage devices such as thoseincluded in the data storage systems manufactured by EMC Corporation.These data storage systems may be coupled to one or more servers or hostprocessors and provide storage services to each host processor. Multipledata storage systems from one or more different vendors may be connectedand may provide common data storage for one or more host processors in acomputer system.

A host processor may perform a variety of data processing tasks andoperations using the data storage system. For example, a host processormay perform basic system I/O operations in connection with datarequests, such as data read and write operations.

Host processor systems may store and retrieve data using a storagedevice containing a plurality of host interface units, disk drives, anddisk interface units. The host systems access the storage device througha plurality of channels provided therewith. Host systems provide dataand access control information through the channels to the storagedevice and the storage device provides data to the host systems alsothrough the channels. The host systems do not address the disk drives ofthe storage device directly, but rather, access what appears to the hostsystems as a plurality of logical disk units. The logical disk units mayor may not correspond to the actual disk drives. Allowing multiple hostsystems to access the single storage device unit allows the host systemsto share data in the device. In order to facilitate sharing of the dataon the device, additional software on the data storage systems may alsobe used.

Different tasks may be performed in connection with a data storagesystem. For example, software may be executed on the data storage systemin connection with performing data storage administration tasks such asfor data storage configuration, management, and/or monitoring. Inconnection with performing administrative tasks, help facilities may beintegrated with software used for performing the administrative tasks.The help facilities may be available locally on the data storage system,for example, using help files statically included on a CD-ROM. If thereis insufficient information included in the help facilities on the datastorage system, the customer may invoke a web browser in a differentsession and manually enter information to navigate and search differentwebsites on the Internet in efforts to obtain additional relevantinformation for performing the data storage administrative tasks. Theforegoing has drawbacks in that such searches can be time consuming andcumbersome, the customer may lack sufficient knowledge to performaccurate searches, and the customer may obtain incorrect informationfrom unreliable sources. In connection with performing the first task,the user may perform the data storage administration in a first sessionconnected to the data storage system. In connection with performing thesecond task of searching for additional information about the problemsencountered in the first task, the user may start a second session byinvoking the web browser to navigate and search websites on theInternet. There is no information shared between the two tasks performedother than that which the user enters manually.

Thus, it may be desirable to utilize techniques in connection with datastorage system management, configuration, and/or monitoring whichprovide for connections to other external locations and environmentsoutside of the data storage system. It may also be desirable that suchtechniques provide for transfer of information between the data storagesystem and the environments external to the data storage system toassist the user in connection with performing different data storagesystem management tasks.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In accordance with one aspect of the invention is a computer-implementedmethod for performing data storage system management of a data storagesystem, the method comprising: providing an active element managercomponent that performs data storage system management operations inconnection with a data storage device of the data storage system;collecting, using said active element manager component, contextinformation, said context information including information about acurrent state of the data storage system; receiving user relevantinformation by said active element manager component from an externalenvironment which has connectivity to said data storage system and isexternal with respect to a data storage system environment includingsaid data storage system, said user relevant information includinginformation about a virtual user community included in said externalenvironment which is relevant to a first user identifier; anddisplaying, for an active element management session having said firstuser identifier, said user relevant information via a user interface,said user interface providing for display a first portion of said userrelevant information about said virtual user community and a firstconnection to said external environment, wherein, upon selection of saidfirst portion, said active element manager component connects to atarget location associated with said virtual user community in saidexternal environment and provides said context information to saidexternal environment. The virtual user community may include one or moresources of information about topics of interest to members of saidvirtual user community, and said first portion of said relevantinformation may include data about one of said sources. The one or moresources may include at least one of: a blog, a user question and answerforum, electronic paper publications, and a source of technicalinformation. The virtual user community may be related to at least oneof: a vendor of the data storage system, an application having datastorage hosted on the data storage system, a supplier of the datastorage system, and the data storage system in combination with at leastone hardware or software product of a value added reseller of the datastorage system. The context information may include said first useridentifier used in connection with connecting to said externalenvironment upon selection of said first portion. The method may alsoinclude determining said user relevant information in accordance withuser profile information for said first user identifier. The externalenvironment may be a website provided by one of a vendor or a supplierof the data storage system, and said user relevant information may bedetermined by a computer system accessed at said website using said userprofile information for said first user identifier. The method may alsoinclude: connecting, using said first user identifier, to said virtualuser community in a first session from a first computer; storinginformation about said first session in user profile informationassociated with said first user identifier; connecting, using said firstuser identifier, to said virtual user community in a second session fromsaid data storage system using said active element manager component;and storing information about said second session in said user profileinformation associated with said first user identifier. The method mayinclude: registering, using said first user identifier in one of saidfirst or said second sessions, as a member of said virtual usercommunity; and storing information regarding said registering in saiduser profile information for said first user identifier. The step ofregistering may include selecting to receive notifications regarding oneor more sources of information in said virtual user community. The stepof registering may include selecting to receive notification on at leastone of: postings in a user forum or blog, electronic paper publications,reported problems and technical solutions. The first portion may be anindicator for an item about which said first user identifier is beingnotified, and said first connection may be a hyperlink to correspondingcontent for said item. The user relevant information may be determinedusing user community information included in said user profileinformation for said first user identifier. The user communityinformation may include information about one or more virtual usercommunities to which said first user identifier is registered as amember. The user community information for said first user identifiermay include at least one of: a user community name, a start date ofmembership for said first user identifier in said user community name, anumber of postings by said first user identifier, and information aboutrecent activities of said first user identifier in said user communityname.

In accordance with another aspect of the invention is a data storagesystem comprising a computer readable medium with code stored thereonfor performing active element management, the computer readable mediumcomprising code for: performing, by an active element manager component,a data storage system management operation in connection with a datastorage device of the data storage system; collecting, by said activeelement manager component, context information, said context informationincluding information about a current state of the data storage systemin connection with said data storage system management operation;providing, from said data storage system, said context information to awebsite for one of a vendor of the data storage system or a supplier ofthe data storage system; in response to an input selection on a userinterface, connecting, by said active element manager component, acurrent session associated with said data storage system managementoperation to said website and, in response to said input selection,performing said providing said context information, said active elementmanager component facilitating bi-directional communications directlywith said website, said website including a virtual user community. Thecomputer readable medium may further comprise code for: receiving userrelevant information at said active element manager component from saidwebsite, said user relevant information including information about thevirtual user community hosted at said website which is relevant to afirst user identifier associated with said current session.

In accordance with another aspect of the invention is acomputer-readable medium comprising code stored thereon for performingdata storage system management of a data storage system, thecomputer-readable medium comprising code stored thereon for: providingan active element manager component that performs data storage systemmanagement operations in connection with a data storage device of thedata storage system; collecting, using said active element managercomponent, context information, said context information includinginformation about a current state of the data storage system; receivinguser relevant information provided to said active element managercomponent from an external environment which has connectivity to saiddata storage system and is external with respect to a data storagesystem environment including said data storage system, said userrelevant information including information about a virtual usercommunity included in said external environment which is relevant to afirst user identifier; and displaying, for an active element managementsession having said first user identifier, said user relevantinformation via a user interface, said user interface providing fordisplay a first portion of said user relevant information about saidvirtual user community and a first connection to said externalenvironment, wherein, upon selection of said first portion, said activeelement manager component connects to a target location associated withsaid virtual user community in said external environment and providessaid context information to said external environment. The activeelement manager component may be included in the data storage system.The user relevant information may be determined in accordance with userprofile information for said first user identifier, and said externalenvironment may be a website provided by one of a vendor or a supplierof the data storage system, and said user relevant information isdetermined by a computer system accessed at said website using said userprofile information for said first user identifier. The user relevantinformation may be determined using user community information includedin said user profile information for said first user identifier. Theuser community information may include information about one or morevirtual user communities to which said first user identifier isregistered as a member.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Features and advantages of the present invention will become moreapparent from the following detailed description of exemplaryembodiments thereof taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawingsin which:

FIG. 1 is an example of an embodiment of a system that may utilize thetechniques described herein;

FIG. 2 is an example of components that may be included on the datastorage system for use in performing the techniques herein;

FIG. 3 is an example of a network that may include the data storagesystem utilizing the techniques herein;

FIGS. 4 and 5 are examples illustrating data flow between the datastorage system and external websites in connection with the techniquesherein;

FIGS. 6 and 7 are examples of context information;

FIG. 7A is an example representation of user profile information;

FIG. 8 is an example representing information that may be included at avendor or partner website;

FIG. 9 is an example of a screenshot that may be displayed for use withthe active element manager;

FIG. 10 is an example of a screenshot that may be displayed as a webpagefor a partner website;

FIG. 10A is an example illustrating navigation from the data storagesystem to various web pages at external websites;

FIG. 10B is an example of a display for use in connection withinteractive customer support;

FIGS. 11 and 12 are examples of data flow in connection with the datastorage system and navigation to virtual user communities at websites;

FIG. 13 is an example illustrating various sessions of user interactionwith the user community;

FIG. 14 is an example illustrating in more detail user communityinformation;

FIG. 15 is an example illustrating data flow processing performed todetermine user-relevant information that may be transmitted from anexternal environment to the active element manager on the data storagesystem;

FIG. 16 is an example illustrating data flow in connection with theuser-relevant information used by the active element manager;

FIGS. 17 and 18 are examples illustrating how the active element managermay be configured to connect to different external environments; and

FIGS. 19 and 20 are flowcharts of processing steps that may be performedin an using the techniques herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENT(S)

Referring to FIG. 1, shown is an example of an embodiment of a computersystem that may be used in connection with performing the techniquesdescribed herein. The computer system 10 includes one or more datastorage systems 12 connected to server or host systems 14 a-14 n throughcommunication medium 18. The system 10 also includes a management system16 connected to one or more data storage systems 12 throughcommunication medium 20. In this embodiment of the computer system 10,the management system 16, and the N servers or hosts 14 a-14 n mayaccess the data storage systems 12, for example, in performinginput/output (I/O) operations, data requests, and other operations. Thecommunication medium 18 may be any one or more of a variety of networksor other type of communication connections as known to those skilled inthe art. Each of the communication mediums 18 and 20 may be a networkconnection, bus, and/or other type of data link, such as a hardwire orother connections known in the art. For example, the communicationmedium 18 may be the Internet, an intranet, network or other wireless orother hardwired connection(s) by which the host systems 14 a-14 n mayaccess and communicate with the data storage systems 12, and may alsocommunicate with other components (not shown) that may be included inthe computer system 10. In one embodiment, the communication medium 20may be a LAN connection and the communication medium 18 may be an iSCSIor fibre channel connection.

Each of the host systems 14 a-14 n and the data storage systems 12included in the computer system 10 may be connected to the communicationmedium 18 by any one of a variety of connections as may be provided andsupported in accordance with the type of communication medium 18.Similarly, the management system 16 may be connected to thecommunication medium 20 by any one of variety of connections inaccordance with the type of communication medium 20. The processorsincluded in the host computer systems 14 a-14 n and management system 16may be any one of a variety of proprietary or commercially availablesingle or multi-processor system, such as an Intel-based processor, orother type of commercially available processor able to support trafficin accordance with each particular embodiment and application.

It should be noted that the particular examples of the hardware andsoftware that may be included in the data storage systems 12 aredescribed herein in more detail, and may vary with each particularembodiment. Each of the host computers 14 a-14 n, the management system16 and data storage systems may all be located at the same physicalsite, or, alternatively, may also be located in different physicallocations. In connection with communication mediums 18 and 20, a varietyof different communication protocols may be used such as SCSI, FibreChannel, iSCSI, and the like. Some or all of the connections by whichthe hosts, management system, and data storage system may be connectedto their respective communication medium may pass through othercommunication devices, such as a Connectrix or other switching equipmentthat may exist such as a phone line, a repeater, a multiplexer or even asatellite. In one embodiment, the hosts may communicate with the datastorage systems over an iSCSI or a Fibre Channel connection and themanagement system may communicate with the data storage systems over aseparate network connection using TCP/IP. It should be noted thatalthough FIG. 1 illustrates communications between the hosts and datastorage systems being over a first connection, and communicationsbetween the management system and the data storage systems being over asecond different connection, an embodiment may also use the sameconnection. The particular type and number of connections may vary inaccordance with particulars of each embodiment.

Each of the host computer systems may perform different types of dataoperations in accordance with different types of tasks. In theembodiment of FIG. 1, any one of the host computers 14 a-14 n may issuea data request to the data storage systems 12 to perform a dataoperation. For example, an application executing on one of the hostcomputers 14 a-14 n may perform a read or write operation resulting inone or more data requests to the data storage systems 12.

The management system 16 may be used in connection with management ofthe data storage systems 12. The management system 16 may includehardware and/or software components. The management system 16 mayinclude one or more computer processors connected to one or more I/Odevices such as, for example, a display or other output device, and aninput device such as, for example, a keyboard, mouse, and the like. Adata storage system manager may, for example, view information about acurrent storage volume configuration on a display device of themanagement system 16, provision data storage system resources, and thelike.

In one embodiment, the one or more data storage systems 12 of FIG. 1 maybe an appliance with hardware and software for hosting the data storageof the one or more applications executing on the hosts 14 a-14 n. Theappliance may include one or more storage processors and one or moredevices upon which data is stored. The appliance may include softwareused in connection with storing the data of the hosts on the applianceand also software used in connection with configuring the data storagefor use by the hosts in connection with techniques described herein. Asan example in connection with an email application server component thatmay executed on the hosts 14 a-14 n, the data storage configurationtasks may include allocating storage for user accounts or mailboxes,specifying the devices (logical and/or physical) used to store the emaildata, specifying whether data replication is performed for disasterrecovery, and the like. Techniques that may be used in connection withperforming data storage configuration and configuration tasks aredescribed in more detail in following paragraphs in order to provideease of use to customers of the data storage system(s) 12.

In connection with an embodiment in which the data storage 12 is anappliance including hardware and software, the appliance may alsoinclude other software for performing different data services. Forexample, the appliance may include backup server software whichinteracts with software on the hosts 14 a-14 n when performing a backupoperation.

In another embodiment, the data storage systems 12 may include one ormore data storage systems such as one or more of the data storagesystems offered by EMC Corporation of Hopkinton, Mass. Each of the datastorage systems may include one or more data storage devices, such asdisks. One or more data storage systems may be manufactured by one ormore different vendors. Each of the data storage systems included in 12may be inter-connected (not shown). Additionally, the data storagesystems may also be connected to the host systems through any one ormore communication connections that may vary with each particularembodiment and device in accordance with the different protocols used ina particular embodiment. The type of communication connection used mayvary with certain system parameters and requirements, such as thoserelated to bandwidth and throughput required in accordance with a rateof I/O requests as may be issued by the host computer systems, forexample, to the data storage systems 12. It should be noted that each ofthe data storage systems may operate stand-alone, or may also beincluded as part of a storage area network (SAN) that includes, forexample, other components such as other data storage systems. Each ofthe data storage systems may include a plurality of disk devices orvolumes. The particular data storage systems and examples as describedherein for purposes of illustration should not be construed as alimitation. Other types of commercially available data storage systems,as well as processors and hardware controlling access to theseparticular devices, may also be included in an embodiment.

In such an embodiment in which element 12 of FIG. 1 is implemented usingone or more data storage systems, each of the data storage systems mayinclude code thereon for performing the techniques as described hereinfor processing a data storage configuration request.

Servers or host systems, such as 14 a-14 n, provide data and accesscontrol information through channels to the storage systems, and thestorage systems may also provide data to the host systems also throughthe channels. The host systems may not address the disk drives of thestorage systems directly, but rather access to data may be provided toone or more host systems from what the host systems view as a pluralityof logical devices or logical volumes (LVs). The LVs may or may notcorrespond to the actual disk drives. For example, one or more LVs mayreside on a single physical disk drive. Data in a single storage systemmay be accessed by multiple hosts allowing the hosts to share the dataresiding therein. An LV or LUN (logical unit number) may be used torefer to the foregoing logically defined devices or volumes.

In following paragraphs, reference may be made to a particularembodiment such as, for example, an embodiment in which element 12 ofFIG. 1 is an appliance as described above. However, it will beappreciated by those skilled in the art that this is for purposes ofillustration and should not be construed as a limitation of thetechniques herein.

Referring to FIG. 2, shown is an example of components that may beincluded on the data storage system 12 and the management system 16. Themanagement system 16 may include a web browser 104 which is used whencommunicating with the active element manager (AEM) 120 of the datastorage system 12. The AEM 120 may be used to perform operations inconnection with management, configuration, monitoring, and the like, ofthe data storage system. For example, the AEM 120 may be used toprovision storage used by any one or more different applications such asan email application, a database application, and file server, and thelike. As described herein, the AEM 120 may also be used to facilitateinteractions with environments and locations external to the datastorage system 12 and management system 16, such as other computernetwork locations. In other words, the AEM 120 may be used to facilitatecommunications with other locations and environments external withrespect to the data storage system environment in which the data storagesystem environment may include, for example, one or more data storagesystems 12, the management system 16, a SAN, and the like.

The AEM 120 includes a user interface (UI) 102, an active managementcomponent 130, and one or more layers or levels of services, such as106, 108 and 110, in connection with implementing a data storage requestsuch as a data storage configuration request.

The user interface (UI) 102 may provide for one or more different typesof user interfaces and associated data. For example, the UI 102 mayprovide support for a graphical user interface (GUI), command lineinterface (CLI), and the like, to support interactions between the datastorage system 12 and the hosts 14 a-14 n of FIG. 1. The UI 102 mayinteract with other components on the data storage system in connectionwith communicating with a user. For example, the UI 102 may provide UIdata (e.g., content or data used to populate the UI menus), and UIpresentation or structure information (e.g., command organization orparticular hierarchical menu structure) to another component such as theweb browser 104 in connection with interacting with the user.

The active management component 130 may be used in connection withfacilitating communications between the UI 102 and the different servicelayers 106, 108 and 110 when performing active element managementoperations. Active element management operations may be characterized asthose involving interactions with environments and locations external tothe data storage system environment. Such external environments andlocations may include, for example, other network locations and websitesas described elsewhere herein. The active management component 130 mayfacilitate a two-way communication flow of information to and/or fromthe external environments. The active management component 130 maygather context information 145 describing the current context and stateof the data storage system with respect to the current user andoperation being performed. The component 130 may gather such informationincluded in 145 by communicating with other components on the datastorage system 12, such as one or more of the service layers 106, 108and 110. The component 130 may communicate the context information 145to a target location in an external environment such as a target networklocation on the Internet. The component 130 may facilitate selecting, inaccordance with the context information 145 of the data storage system,a target location in the external environment, such as an Internetwebsite, and communicating the context information directly to thetarget location. The component 130 may also be used to facilitatecommunicating information received from the target location to the user.

In the example 100, the component 130 is represented as a single logicalcomponent. However, an embodiment may integrate the operations andfunctionality of the component 130 in the UI 102 and/or other componentsincluded in the AEM 120.

It should be noted that there are two paths 142 and 144 illustrated inFIG. 2. The path 142 may be used in connection with those operationsinvolving interactions with environments external to the data storagesystem. The path 144 may be used when performing operations that do notinvolve such interactions with environments external to the data storagesystem 12 and management system 16. For example, the path 144 may beused in connection with performing a data storage configuration requestissued by a user from the management system 16. The path 142 may beutilized if an operation or condition occurs involving the activemanagement component 130 such as when the user requests connection to awebsite on the Internet for additional information and assistance withrespect to an error that occurred as a result of the data storageconfiguration request.

In the example 100, the AEM 120 may include application services 106,intermediate or generic storage services 108, and physical storageservices 110. In one embodiment, the user may interact with the UIcommunicating directly with any one of the different services 106, 108and 110. In other words, a user may communicate directly with layer 106,108 or 110. If a user provides an input request and/or data by directlycommunicating with one of the upper service layers, such as 106, theuser request and/or data may be mapped to one or more lower servicerequests, such as by services of 106 communicating with services of 108and/or 110 to implement the original input request. By connecting to thedifferent service layers 106, 108 and 110, the UI may provide the userwith exposure to different levels of abstraction in connection withperforming data storage system management tasks. In one embodiment asdescribed in more detail below, the different service layers may be inaccordance with different levels of proficiency and knowledge withrespect to performing data storage system management tasks for differentapplications.

The application services 106 may have an application-specific focus andprovide a level of abstraction customized for an application such as,for example, a particular email application, law office application ormedical office application, as well as a class of related applications,such as multiple email applications. The application services layer 106may map the user provided inputs for use by the intermediate storageservices 108. When a user interacts with the application services 106for a particular application, the interface language may vary with theapplication. For example, if the application is a law officeapplication, the interface language, menu options, and the like, may betailored to the law profession. Similarly, a medical office applicationmay utilize an interface language, menu options, and the like, familiarto the medical office. As such, the application services 106 may use oneset of rules or mappings for each application to implement theapplication specific best practices for the user level. A first set ofrules for the medical office application may be used to map the userinput parameters using medical office terminology to parameters for theappropriate API calls for other services included in 108 and/or 110. Asecond set of rules for the law office application may be used to mapthe user input parameters using law office terminology to parameters forthe appropriate API calls for other services 108 and/or 110. The userconnecting to the data storage system at the application services 106may be provided with a user interface customized for the selected leveland application to perform a requested data storage configuration.

The intermediate storage services 108 may be an intermediate level. Theapplication services 106 may communicate with the intermediate storageservices 108 when implementing a request for data storage configuration.In one embodiment, a user connecting to the intermediate storageservices 108 may be provided with a generic level of interaction whichmay not be tailored for the particular application. In other words, thesame language and user interface may be presented to a user for multipleapplications such as the medical application or law office application.As a variation to the foregoing, the intermediate storage services 108may be customized for each application and provide for a more detailedlevel of exposure that varies per application.

The physical storage services 110 provide the most detailed or greatestlevel of exposure of the underlying data storage system. The physicalstorage services 110 may be customized for the particular storage vendorand associated options. The user interface for a user connected at tothe physical storage services may include menu options and termsparticular to the underlying storage vendor and the more knowledgeableuser. For example, the user may specify particular devices, RAID levelsand techniques, file types, SCSI and iSCSI terminology, and the like.

As an example in connection with a user making a data storageconfiguration request and communicating with the application services106, the user may input data in connection with the request in anapplication specific context. For example, a user may make a datastorage configuration request to configure data storage for a filesystem or email application. The data input by the user may be in thecontext of the particular application (e.g., a number of mailboxes, sizeof mailbox, storage group, and the like). The application-specific datareceived by the application services 106 may be mapped to one or moreapplication-neutral or generic requests to the intermediate storageservices 108. The intermediate storage services 108 may then make one ormore calls to the physical storage services 110 to implement requests inthe context of the physical storage devices 108 a-108 n, for example,for the particular data storage vendor and underlying hardware.

Software executed on the data storage system may provide forimplementation of best practices for data storage configuration and dataservices in accordance with each particular application whose data ishosted on the data storage system. Such software may be included in thedifferent service layers, such as 106, 108 and 110, of the AEM and aredescribed in more detail in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/824,578,filed: Jun. 29, 2007, APPLICATION AWARE STORAGE, which is incorporatedby reference herein. In such an embodiment using the different servicelayers, such as 106, 108 and 110 having an application-specific focuswith each layer providing a different level of abstraction customizedfor each application, the UI may provide a user with different levels ofexposure to information and requests when performing data storage systemconfiguration tasks.

It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that an embodimentmay include different service layers in connection with performing thetechniques described herein. For example, an embodiment of the AEM 120may not incorporate services which have an application-specific focusand may not be characterized as application aware.

It should be noted that the example 100 is one possible embodiment ofthe components used in connection with the techniques herein. Asillustrated in FIG. 2, the AEM 120 is included in the data storagesystem. In another embodiment using the techniques herein, the AEM 120may be installed and execute on a host or other component connected tothe data storage system. In yet another embodiment portions of the AEM120, such as the UI 102 and/or one or more of the services 106, 108, 110may be installed and execute on a host or other component connected tothe data storage system.

Referring to FIG. 3, shown is an example 200 of a network in which thetechniques herein may be performed. The example 200 includes a customerdata storage system 210 connected to a network 212, such as theInternet, a vendor website 202 and a partner or data storage supplierwebsite 204. The customer data storage system 210 may be a data storagesystem 12 as described elsewhere herein. The system 210 may include theAEM 220 which may generate the context information 222. A user mayconnect to the AEM 220 by logging in using a web browser 104 on themanagement system 16. As described herein, the data storage system 210and management system 16 may be included in a data storage systemenvironment. The data storage system 210 may be connected standalone tothe network 212, may be included in a SAN, or other arrangement. The AEM220 may be used in connection with producing the context information 222and facilitating communication of the context information 222 to anexternal environment, such as one or more of the websites 202 and 204.Additionally, the AEM 220 may be used in connection with receivinginformation from the external environment and communicating the receivedinformation to the user, such as via the web browser 104.

The vendor website 202 may be a website of a data storage vendor ormanufacturer, such as EMC Corporation. The partner or data storagesupplier website 204 may be a website provided by a partner or datastorage supplier. As an example, a partner or data storage supplier maybe a distributor, reseller or VAR (Value added reseller) of the datastorage systems of the vendor. In connection with examples providedherein, a particular partner or data storage supplier, such as a VAR,may be described for purposes of illustration and should not beconstrued as a limitation. As an example, a VAR may add additionalhardware and/or software for use with the data storage system of aparticular vendor and the VAR may sell the combination of the datastorage system with VAR-added hardware and/or software to the customer.Each partner or data storage supplier may have a business relationshipwith the vendor or manufacturer of the data storage system. A customermay purchase a data storage system from one of the partners or datastorage suppliers. As an example with respect to FIG. 3, the customermay purchase the data storage system 210 from a VAR. The VAR may providean environment, such as a VAR website. The VAR website may be anillustrative example of website 204. The VAR website may include, forexample, information on VAR hardware and software products, services,training and educational courses offered by the VAR, support forVAR-related products, VAR online store, VAR-sponsored user communities(e.g., using a particular application on a data storage system includingVAR products), and the like. The website 204 may be provided by, andunder the control of, the VAR or other partner. The vendor website 202may be provided by, and under the control of, the data storage vendor ormanufacturer. The vendor may provide website 202 for use by the vendor'spartners. The vendor website 202 may include information regardingvendor supplied products, services, training, user communities, and thelike, as may be included in the partner website 204 but, in contrast,may be vendor specific if included in 202. As will be described herein,the data storage system 210 may communicate, directly or indirectly,with the websites 202 and 204.

As described herein, the AEM 220 may be used in connection withconfiguring and management of the data storage system in the datastorage system environment. The AEM may also be used to facilitateconnecting the AEM on the data storage system with external environmentsalong with context information from the data storage system.

As an example in connection with existing data storage systems notutilizing the AEM, a user may perform a data storage configurationoperation, such as provision data storage for mailboxes in connectionwith an email application hosting data on the data storage system 210.An error may occur in connection with performing the data storageprovisioning and the user may open up a new window or another webbrowser session. The user may manually enter a URL of a website whichthe user knows has additional information relevant to the provisioningtask for the email application. If the user does not know the URL, theuser may first perform a search, such as using an Internet searchengine, to determine the correct URL. Once the user has the correct URL,the user may navigate to the URL for the website and perform queries atthe website to gain additional information about how to handle the errorencountered. In the foregoing, two tasks are performed: a first task inconnection with the provisioning operation and a second task inconnection with the subsequent search for additional information inconnection with the error from the provisioning operation.

In connection with the AEM, the AEM may be used to automate theforegoing process and automatically connect the user to the correctwebsite. Furthermore, the user may be connected to a particular page onthe website. The context information of the data storage system on whichthe user encountered the error may be communicated to the targetlocation, such as the website. The AEM may be used to obtain therelevant context information for use in connection with subsequentinteractions between the user and the website to which the user is beingconnected. Additionally, the user may receive through the AEM additionalinformation from the external environment of the target location. Thus,the AEM serves to facilitate automatically connecting the user to theappropriate external environment, providing the relevant contextinformation to the target location of the external environment, andfacilitating further communications between the data storage system 210and the external environment.

The AEM 220 may be configured by the VAR or other partner selling thedata storage system 210 to connect the user to the appropriate targetlocation and external environment. For example, for errors occurringwith VAR hardware and/or software, a customer may be automaticallyconnected to the website 204 with the appropriate context information222 for the data storage system as well as VAR hardware and/or software.If an error occurs with the data storage system having nothing to dowith the VAR products, the customer may alternatively be connected tothe vendor website 202. The customer may be directed to any one or moretarget locations at the external environment such as, for example, avirtual or online user community, a customer support agent, onlinestore, and the like. As described herein, the user community may becharacterized as a virtual community having a common interest. Inconnection with the techniques herein, there may be user communitiesfocused on a particular vendor's hardware, combination of data storagesystem and application hosting storage therein, and the like. Members ofthe user community may exchange information regarding the common area ofinterest, for example, via a user community hosted at a websitelocation. The user community may include user forums, blogs, varioussources of technical information, and the like.

Included at each of the websites 202 and 204 may be, respectively, userprofile data 206 and 208. The user profile data 206, 208 may be datagathered about the user, such as customer-related information about datastorage systems purchased, license information, and data regardingcurrent and previous interactions with the websites. In one embodiment,the set of user profile data 208 may be a master or aggregate copy ofuser profile data. The user profile data 206 may be collected for a timeperiod, such as in connection with user interactions during the timeperiod, and then provided to the website 204 for incorporation into themaster user profile 208. A vendor providing the website 202 may performsuch data gathering and forwarding of user profile data 206 as a serviceto its partners or suppliers having a website such as 204.

The context information 222 may describe, for example, an errorreceived, the recent operations performed by the user leading up to theerror, information about the current data storage configuration, theuser ID (e.g., the user login identifier as provided in connection withauthentication), and the like. The user profile 208 may include, forexample, current licensing information, and a variety of different typesof historical user data such as service calls, previous problemsreported to an interactive customer support agent, previous purchases(via online or other), and the like.

The AEM 220 may collect and provide selected context information 222 inaccordance with the particular problem or other current context relatedto the user's data storage system environment. The AEM 220 may becharacterized as the launching point or connection point to the externalenvironments and target locations (e.g., such as over a computernetwork) in which the AEM 220 facilitates the two-way flow ofinformation between the data storage system and the externalenvironment(s). The two-way information flow facilitated by the AEM maybe used to enrich the data storage system customer's experience in avariety of different interactions such as, for example, related tosupport, e-commerce, virtual or online user communities, and the like,at one or more external environments, such as websites 202 and/or 204 aswill be described in more detail elsewhere herein.

As one example, the data storage system 210 may directly communicate andinteract with the partner website 204. In turn, the partner website 204may communicate with the vendor website 202, for example, to retrieveinformation which is then provided to the customer. The website 204 maycommunicate with the website 202 to indirectly expose the customer toselected filtered portions of the website 204. For example, the datastorage system 210 may communicate directly with the website 204 and thewebsite 204 may expose particular portions of the website 202 to thecustomer. As another example, the data storage system 210 may directlycommunicate with both the websites 202 and 204 in accordance with theconfiguration of the AEM 220.

Referring to FIG. 4, shown is an example illustrating how informationmay flow in connection with the techniques herein. The example 300illustrates a customer data storage system 310 which communicatesdirectly with the partner or data storage supplier website 304, such asthat under the control of a VAR. The website 304, in turn, maycommunicate with the vendor website 302, such as under the control of adata storage vendor or manufacturer having the VAR as a businesspartner. Information from the websites 302 and/or 304 may becommunicated through website 304 to the data storage system 310. Thedata storage system 310 may include the AEM 320. A data storage systemenvironment may include a management system 16 with a web browser 104through which a customer uses to invoke and utilize the AEM 320 of thecustomer data storage system 310.

As an example, a VAR website may obtain selected technical informationfrom different vendor websites dependent on the customer's data storagesystem. The VAR website may communicate with the appropriate vendorwebsite to obtain the information which is then displayed to thecustomer via the AEM and web browser connected thereto. The customer maynot be aware of the indirect communication between the VAR and vendorwebsite.

Referring to FIG. 5, shown is another example illustrating howinformation may flow in connection with the techniques herein. Theexample 400 illustrates a customer data storage system 410 whichcommunicates directly with the partner or data storage supplier website404, such as that under the control of a VAR. The data storage system410 may also communicate directly with the vendor website 402, such asunder the control of a data storage vendor or manufacturer having theVAR as a business partner. Information from the websites 402 and/or 404may be communicated directly to the data storage system 410. The datastorage system 410 may include the AEM 420. A data storage systemenvironment may include a management system 16 with a web browser 104through which a customer uses to invoke and utilize the AEM 420 of thecustomer data storage system 410.

It should be noted that information flow in connection with the customerdata storage system as facilitated by the AEM may be a combination ofthat which is illustrated in FIGS. 4 and 5 as well as other variations.For example, the partner and/or vendor may each have one or morewebsites to which the customer data storage system may communicatedepending on the particular context information and configuration of theAEM. The AEM may be configured by the partner to control the externalenvironments and target locations therein to which the customer datastorage system communicates. As illustrated elsewhere herein, theparticular external environment and target location with which the datastorage system communicates may vary with context information.

In connection with the techniques herein, context information may beinformation that is transmitted from the data storage system to a targetlocation in an external environment. Information that is received by thedata storage system may include user-relevant information determined,for example, by code executing on one of the partner and/or vendorwebsites. Other information that may be communicated between the datastorage system and external environments may vary with particular userinteractions. The foregoing is described in more detail in followingparagraphs.

Referring to FIG. 6, shown an example representation of contextinformation as may be collected by the AEM and transmitted to anexternal environment. The example 500 includes a data storage identifier502, a user identifier 504, status information 506, applicationinformation 508 and data storage configuration information 510. Thecontext information supplied by the AEM may be different than asdescribed herein and vary with the particular AEM as well as theparticular context to which the AEM is responding. For example, asdescribed in FIG. 2, the AEM may have information regarding theparticular applications which are hosting data on the data storagesystem. However, another embodiment may include an AEM which does nothave information regarding the particular applications hosting data onthe data storage system and, as such, application information 508 may beomitted in such an embodiment. As another example, the AEM may beinstalled on a data storage system supplied by a VAR. The data storagesystem may also include VAR-specific hardware and/or software. An erroror other user action may occur involving VAR-specific hardware and/orsoftware. As a result, additional information may be included in thecontext information related to the VAR-specific hardware and/orsoftware. Such additional context information may include the name,version number, settings, options, and the like, for the VAR-specificproducts. The user may be directed to the VAR website all the time, orconditionally, such as when a VAR-specific component is involved inconnection with the user inquiry, error, and the like, to which the AEMis responding. If there is an error which is not related to a VARproduct, the AEM may omit any VAR-particular information and may connectthe user to the vendor website directly, or indirectly through the VARwebsite.

Referring to FIG. 7, shown is a more detailed example of contextinformation that may be transmitted from the AEM. The example 600illustrates context information which is communicated in XML format.Element 602 includes a system identifier and user identifier. The systemidentifier of “12345” may be an identifier of the particular datastorage system on which the AEM is included. The system identifier mayidentify the data storage system model as well as a particular instanceof a data storage system manufactured or supplied. The user identifier“anne_s” may identify the user as logged onto the AEM. The useridentifier may be used as an index into the user profile data, forexample, as illustrated in FIG. 3 on the websites 202 and 204. Data maybe stored per user as identified by each user identifier. The useridentifier, along with other authentication information, may also beused to allow the data storage system including the AEM to connect tothe external environment.

The field 604 may include status information, such as in the form of astatus code and subcode, indicating the status of the data storagesystem. The field 604 may include a numeric encoding of an errorcondition or state of the data storage system, for example, resultingfrom the most recent user operations. In one embodiment, the datastorage system including the AEM as well as the different externalenvironments with which the AEM communicates may utilize a commonmessage catalogue. The AEM may provide information in 604 which is alsocommonly understood by other external environments with which the AEMcan communicate.

The field 605 may include information regarding the storage capacity ofthe data storage system and also the amount of available or free datastorage. Such information may relate generally to the state of the datastorage system and can be useful for a variety of different purposes asdescribed herein, such as, for example, support and problem diagnosticsand e-commerce.

The field 606 may identify the particular applications for which storageis being hosted on the data storage system identified by 602. The field606 may identify, for example, the type of application, such as ageneral category as email applications, as well as name the applicationinstance, such as Microsoft® Exchange Server.

The field 608 may include other data storage configuration informationsuch as, for example, identifying the particular disk drive vendor,size, speed, location (e.g., slot number), status, and the like.

The information in various fields of FIG. 7 may describe the currentconfiguration and associated state thereof. For example, field 605conveys information regarding the data storage configuration (e.g.,maximum capacity) as well the current state (e.g., amount of storagewhich is used or free). Similarly information of field 608 includesinformation about the data storage configuration (e.g., the disk typesindicating vendor) as well as the current state of the data storageconfiguration (e.g., status of each disk).

Referring to FIG. 7A, shown is an example representation of the types ofdata that may be included in the user profile as maintained for eachuser identifier. User profiles are illustrated, for example, in FIG. 3as elements 206 and 208. User profile information may include the useridentifier 622, user contact information 624, license information 626,support and service contract information 628, service call and problemhistory 630, data storage information 632, website activity information634, live chat support information 636, phone support information 638,and user community information 640. It should be noted that any portionof the information included in FIG. 7A as stored in connection with theuser profile may be included in context information provided by the AEM.The particular portions included may vary with the particularconnection, transaction and/or operation being performed by the AEM.

The user identifier 622 may be used as an index or identifier into theuser profile information for each user. The user identifier 622 may be,for example, the identifier of 504 of FIGS. 6 and 602 of FIG. 7 asdescribed elsewhere herein. The user contact information 624 may includecomplete name, address, phone, email, and other information used tocontact the user identified by 622. The information in 624 may be used,for example, to customize and personalize interactions between the userand customer support personnel in interactions facilitated by the AEMvia the partner and/or vendor website.

The license information 626 may describe the one or more licenses thatthe user has, for example, for the VAR or vendor software thereon. Thelicense information may describe the license terms and provisions of theone or more licenses. For example, the license information 626 mayindicate an expiration date, if any, for different software installed onthe data storage system. The information in 626 may be useful, forexample, in connection with facilitating e-commerce transactions toremind the user that a current license will expire, offer better ordifferent license terms, and the like.

The support and service contract information 628 may include the levelof support being provided to the user, such as by the partner. Forexample, the user may have purchased a contract for unlimited helpsupport, a fixed fee for each problem inquiry, and the like. Informationin 628 may be useful, for example, when the AEM is facilitatinginteractions between the user and online or telephone customer supportinteractions to indicate to the customer support personnel informationon the relationship with the particular user.

The service call and problem history 630 may indicate a history ofprevious problems this user has had, the number of technician servicecalls dispatched to the customer's site by the partner and/or vendor,and the like. Such information may be useful in connection withsubsequent interactions since the user may be experiencing the same orrelated problems.

The data storage information 632 may identify the particular hardwareand/or software of the vendor and/or supplier. Such information mayidentify the hardware and/or software component name, versioninformation, options and settings for configurations, storage capacity,and the like. The information in 632 may be useful, for example, inproviding customer support, directing the user to information ofinterest, and in e-commerce transactions to notify the user regardingdiscounts on hardware/software of interest.

The website activity information 634 may identify recent userinteractions and activities such as, for example, different electronicpaper publications downloaded, different queries performed at the vendorand/or partner websites, and the like. The information in 634 may beuseful, for example, in notifying the user of other information that maybe of interest, indicating a level of proficiency of the user, and thelike. For example, based on particular electronic publicationsdownloaded or queries may at the vendor and/or partner website, it maybe inferred that a user is a novice, or other level of proficiency withrespect to a particular application and/or data storage system for datastorage system management.

The live chat support information 636 may include a record of userinteractions with online interactive help support. This may be useful ina manner similar as described in connection with 630 to provide acontext for a current interaction since the current interaction for helpmay be a follow-up on a previous interaction for support assistance.

The phone support information 638 may include a record of userinteractions with phone support. This may be useful in a manner similaras described in connection with 630 and 636 to provide a context for acurrent phone support interaction since the current phone support callmay be a follow-up on a previous interaction for support assistance.

The user community information 640 may describe the membership and/oractivities of the user identified in 622 for different online virtualuser communities. For example, there may be virtual user communities forprovisioning and management of data storage for a particular applicationon a particular vendor's data storage system. Examples of data that maybe included in 640 are described elsewhere herein. Different virtualuser communities focus on particular areas of interest, such as productsof a vendor and/or VAR used with a particular application,

Information included in the user profile may be used in connection withproviding selected user-relevant information to the AEM from the partnerand/or vendor website. The user-relevant information may be targeted orcustomized for the particular user in accordance with the user's profileinformation. The customized information may take a variety of differentform using a variety of different technologies. For example, customizedinformation may be pushed from the vendor and/or partner websites to theAEM in the form of notices, alerts, emails, and the like, notifying theuser about the existence of different products, services, papers,virtual user communities, sales events, discounts, upgrades, newsoftware and/or hardware, and the like, that may be of interest to theuser. This is described in more detail in following paragraphs.

Referring to FIG. 8, shown is an example of information that may beincluded on a website of a vendor or partner. In the example 680, thewebsite for vendor or partner XYZ may include information specific tothe particular vendor or partner. For example, the website may includeinformation related to training, support, licensing, products, services,publications, databases or knowledge bases, and virtual user communitiesprovided by the party XYZ. The example 680 generally represents thetypes of information that may be included on a main web page of thewebsite, such as 202 or 204 of FIG. 2. The main web page may includelinks to other web pages hosted on the website providing additionaldetail on each item in the example 680.

The user may be notified regarding relevant portions of the information680 available at the website as selected in accordance with a user'sprofile.

Referring to FIG. 9, shown is an example of a screenshot that may bedisplayed on a web browser when a user is connected to the AEM of thedata storage system. Area 702 may illustrate the current storageallocation in a graphical display for the different applications havingtheir data hosted on the data storage system. Area 704 may include afirst portion of notifications or system messages. The area 704 mayinclude an overall system status indicator (e.g., healthy), amount ofremaining/unallocated storage and other system notifications requiringattention. In this example, area 704 includes a notification 705 thatthe amount of available storage is low and requires attention. Selectionof 705 may result in the AEM connecting to a target location in anexternal environment, such as at a partner or vendor website, to assistin connection with the low storage notification. The notifications inarea 704 may relate to the data storage system. Area 706 may includeother system messages or notifications using information provided by thevendor and/or partner website. Some of the information included in 706may be selected in accordance with the user's profile and provided tothe AEM so that it is included for display such as in the example 700.In this example, the area 706 includes five (5) notifications. Eachnotification 706 a-706 e may include a hyperlink which, when selected,connects the user to a target location in an external environment, suchas a webpage at the partner and/or vendor website. Element 706 a is anotification regarding new firmware available at the VENDOR homepage.Selection of 706 a may connect the AEM to the VENDOR homepage orlocation at the VENDOR website. Element 706 b is a notificationregarding a critical security update available from the VENDOR.Selection of 706 b may connect the AEM to the VENDOR homepage orlocation on the VENDOR website where information about the update isavailable and the update may be available for download from the VENDORwebsite. Element 706 c is a notification regarding a new VAR product.Selection of 706 c may connect the AEM to a location on the VAR websitewhich may describe the new VAR product and/or provide the VAR productfor download if the VAR product is a software product. If the VARproduct is a hardware product, selection of 706 c may connect the AEM toan online store location at the VAR website where the user may purchasethe new VAR product. Element 706 d is a notice regarding a sale of datastorage systems and/or devices through the VAR's online store. Selectionof 706 d may connect the AEM to a location at the VAR's online storewhere the products on sale may be purchased. Element 706 e includes anotification regarding a new electronic publication regarding APP1, anapplication that may be hosting its data on the data storage system.Selection of 706 e may connect the AEM to a location at a partner orvendor website from which the paper may be downloaded, purchased, andthe like.

Included in area 710 are various messages that may be displayed when aparticular user logs into the AEM. The information included in 710 maybe customized and vary with the particular user. Notifications in area710 may be provided from the vendor and/or partner website as describedin connection with area 706. The area 710 may include new or additionalpostings in connection with various virtual user communities, such asblogs or user forums, that a user may belong to. In this example,element 710 a indicates 5 new postings to a blog on Application 1 at theVAR website. The user currently logged into the AEM may participate inthis blog at the VAR website and may have signed up to receivenotification in connection with any new postings. Selection of 710 a mayconnect the AEM to the location at the VAR website where the newpostings can be found for the blog. Element 710 b indicates that thereare 8 new postings at the VENDOR website regarding a particular datastorage system model. Selection of 710 b may connect the AEM to thelocation at the VENDOR website for the indicated 8 new postings.

Area 720 may include a display of information used in connection withallocating storage for a particular application.

In one embodiment, the elements 705, 706 a-e, and 710 a-710 b may be UIindicators having associated hyperlinks which, when selected, navigateto a target location in an external environment, such as an appropriateweb page of a website in accordance with the selection. The web page maybe located at a website such as the partner and/or vendor website.Additionally, the AEM may provide context information as describedelsewhere herein to the target location. Examples of the types of datathat may be included in the context information are illustrated, forexample, in FIGS. 6 and 7.

With reference to the display 700, a user may be logged in andperforming a data storage management operation, such as provisioningdata storage for use by one of the applications using the interface area720. In response to allocating additional storage for use by theapplication, the message or indicator 705 may appear on the displayindicating low storage. In other words, the last operation ofprovisioning data storage for use by the application caused the amountof available or free storage to fall below some predefined threshold. Byselecting 705, the AEM may be used to provide a connection between thecurrent data storage management session, such as in connection withprovisioning data storage for use by an application, and an externalenvironment, such as another website, which may provide additionalinformation, customer support, purchase of additional storage, and thelike, related to the low storage condition or state of the data storagesystem. Additionally, the AEM may automatically collect and transmit tothe target location context information regarding the current state ofthe data storage system including, for example, the amount of currentlyavailable free storage on the data storage system, the error messagestatus code indicating the low storage condition indicated by 705, thecurrent devices and associated storage capacities currently included inthe data storage system, and the like.

In connection with the foregoing or other selection of a UI indicatorfrom the display 700, another browser window may be opened and the AEMmay provide for navigation to the external website including theappropriate page of the website for the blog, knowledge base/database,or other source of information for the selected UI indicator. As anotherexample, if the UI indicator provides a connection to a database forinformation about a particular problem, selection of the UI indicatormay navigate to the appropriate external website location, supply queryterms to the database and query the database. The results of the querymay be displayed to the user in a browser window.

As yet another example, selection of a UI indicator in 700 for a problemor error may connect the AEM to a chat room at a partner or vendorwebsite where the user logged into the AEM may interact directly with acustomer service representative or agent to schedule service, provideinteractive customer assistance, and the like. The context informationmay be provided by the AEM to the agent at the partner or vendor websiteso the agent can examine the current context of the data storage system.This may assist the agent in diagnosing a problem and providingrecommendations for solutions to the problem. Additionally, the agentmay utilize the user profile information stored on the partner and/orvendor website in connection with providing additional contextinformation about the user. In one embodiment, the context informationtransmitted by the AEM to the agent may include the user identifier. Theagent may access the records from the user profile information for theuser identifier. In this manner, the agent may be able to examine anyexisting problem histories and solutions to see, for example, whatsolutions for the same problem did/did not work previously for the sameor similar problem. Using context information provided from the AEM, theagent may be able to detect the version of software on the data storagesystem and the particular problem the user encountered. The error may berelated to a correction included in a later version of the software sothe agent may recommend that the user install the updated softwareincluding the correction or patch. If a problem is recurring, the agentmay recommend replacing a hardware component, providing a particularservice for the component, and the like.

In the foregoing examples, the customer logged into the AEM does nothave to provide the context information that may be useful to thecustomer service representative in problem analysis, service scheduling,providing recommended actions/next steps, and the like. Such contextinformation is automatically collected and transmitted to the selectedtarget location in the external environment.

With reference to the example 700 of FIG. 9, selection of the UIindicator 705 indicating low storage may result in opening anotherbrowser window and a connection is made to the VAR website resulting indisplay of a web page of the VAR website as illustrated in FIG. 10.

Referring to FIG. 10, shown is a screenshot that may be displayed asresult of selecting 705 from the example 700. The example 800 representsinformation that may be displayed for a VAR website page. Area 802indicates that the displayed information is in connection with supportweb page at website for VAR XYZ. Area 804 includes information relatedto the low storage indicator 705 in that the data storage system whosecontext information was transmitted to the VAR website is running low onstorage. Selection of the word “HERE” from area 804 may result inadditional information being displayed regarding the error condition.The message displayed in 804 may be customized, for example, inconnection with the status or error code provided in the contextinformation from the AEM. On the web page 800, the user may select anoperation to be performed in accordance with the context informationpushed from the AEM to the VAR website. The user may select to purchaseadditional storage from the VENDOR or VAR online store via selection ofthe appropriate UI indicator in 806. Selection of one of the indicatorsof 806 may navigate the user to one of the indicated online stores.Additionally, the context information as supplied by the AEM may also beused to populate the display with data storage products compatible withthe current data storage configuration of the user's data storage systemas indicated in the context information and/or user profile data.

The user may select 820 to navigate to a location on the VAR websiteproviding live online/interactive support with a support agent.Selection of 820 provides for automatic connection to a subsequent webpage and also propagates the context information to the support agent.As an alternative to online interactive support, the user may select 822to have a support agent call the user back on the telephone. Selectionof 822 may result in the context information being transmitted to asupport agent and accessing contact information for the user from theuser profile. The agent may then use the contact information to callback the user.

Selection of 824 may result in navigation to a web page where the latestVAR software updates are available.

Selection of 808 may result in navigation to a user community. The usercommunity selected and displayed in 808 may be in accordance with thecontext information and/or user profile. The user may be a registered oractive member of the user community as indicated in the user's profiledata. If the user is not a member, the user community indicated in 808may be selected based on the vendor and application indicated in thecontext information provided by the AEM. The user community may be usedto provide insights from other users, for example, using the samevendor's data storage system for the same application. Another user maybe able to make a recommendation regarding what next steps may beappropriate based on similar experiences, errors, and the like.

Selection of 810 may result in automatic navigation to a web pageincluding databases that may be provide additional information about thelow storage condition or state indicated in 804. Selection of 810 mayresult in navigation to a page of resources from which the user may makea further selection. The sources of information may include a databaseof frequently asked questions (FAQs) about the VENDOR and/or VARproducts, a knowledge base which is a technical support database, and adatabase of solutions to common questions and problems. Query terms maybe automatically provided in accordance with the context informationtransmitted from the AEM, such as query terms in connection with thestatus of low available storage. It should be noted that informationincluded in 810 may also be a portion of information associated with oneor more virtual user communities. Alternatively, the informationincluded in 810 may not be associated with any virtual community but mayrather be generally available data sources on a website provided by avendor and/or partner.

In connection with the foregoing the AEM automatically selects andnavigates to a location based on current context information indicatingthe state of the data storage system at the time the AEM is connectingto the external environment and target location. The AEM automaticallycommunicates the context information from the data storage system to theVAR website, or other external environment, so that the contextinformation may be used in connection with subsequent user interactions.

Referring to FIG. 10A, shown is an example illustrating the variousconnections and information flow from the data storage system includingthe AEM. In other words, the example 850 illustrates the various launchor connection points that can be made from the AEM and the customer'sdata storage system 854. The example 850 illustrates the connectionsmade in accordance with a VAR web site and web pages as described inconnection with FIG. 10. Selection of the UI indicator 705 results in aconnection to the main or home web page 856 of the VAR website. Fromthis main page 856, a user may make another selection navigating to adifferent web page for the VAR website 867. For example, selection ofone of the links from area 806 of FIG. 10 results in navigation to oneof the VAR online store 860 or the VENDOR online store. Selection of 820from FIG. 10 results in navigation to chat support web page 858.Selection of 808 from FIG. 10 results in navigation to a user communityweb page 862, which may be further connected to one or more other webpages that a user may traverse. Selection of 810 from FIG. 10 results innavigation to a self help web page 864 which may be further connected toone or more other web pages that a user may traverse for the differentsources of self help. Selection of 824 from FIG. 10 results innavigation to a VAR software updates page 866.

In the example described in connection with FIGS. 9 and 10, selection of705 from FIG. 9 may result in navigation to the main or home web page ofthe VAR 856 of FIG. 10A. However, rather than have selection of 705result in a connection to 856, the AEM may be configured by the partner,such as the VAR, which supplied the data storage system 854 to connectdirectly to chat support 858 (as illustrated by connection 868), orconnect directly to the VAR online store (as illustrated by connection870) where the user may be presented with relevant data storage devicesthat can be purchased in accordance with the current data storage systemconfiguration of 854 as indicated in the supplied context informationand/or user profile information.

Referring to FIG. 10B, shown is an example of a screenshot as may bedisplayed to the user logged on to the AEM in response to selecting 820of FIG. 10, or otherwise configuring the AEM to directly connect to thechat support location 858 of FIG. 10A. The example 880 includes adialogue box 882 for the agent. The agent may personalize the dialoguefor the particular user by accessing information about the user in theuser profile in accordance with the user identifier communicated in thecontext information supplied by the AEM. In this example, the user ID1may have corresponding user profile information including contactinformation for Ms. Joanne Smith. The agent may inquire in 882 whetherthe user is connecting to the chat support for assistance with thecurrent state and message regarding low available storage on the datastorage system. The foregoing may be accomplished using the contextinformation indicating the low storage state to the agent. The user mayinteract with the agent by inputting data in the dialogue box 884.

With reference to FIG. 10A, in one embodiment, the AEM may be configuredto connect to the home or main page 856 for certain types of error orstatus conditions. For errors of a particular type or severity level, orrecurring errors, the user may be directly connected to the chat supportpage. The AEM may make a determination to conditionally connect the userto one of a variety of different locations based on context informationcollected by the AEM on the data storage information. The AEM mayexamine the current error or status code (e.g., 506 of FIG. 6)indicating a state of the data storage system and connect to one ofmultiple locations depending on the error code and/or severity. Thecontext information provided by the AEM may include a recent history ofstatus codes, for example, status codes for the last n operationsperformed by the user within a time period that resulted in an error,status codes associated with the last n times that the user requestedconnection to the VAR website, and the like. If the user has experiencedthe same error within a defined time period, the AEM may connect theuser directly with chat support.

As described herein, regardless of the target location in the externalenvironment to which the AEM connects, the AEM automatically collectsand provides context information when communicating with the targetlocation. As also described herein, providing the context informationfrom the customer's data storage system including the AEM to the targetlocation is only one way in which information can flow. Communicationbetween the customer's data storage system and the external environmentincluding the target location is bi-directional so that information mayalso be pushed from the target location to the data storage system.Information from external environments, such as the partner and/orvendor websites, may be provided to the AEM automatically or as part ofthe interactive dialogues. The information from the partner and/orvendor websites may be provided automatically resulting in notificationsto a user when the user logs onto the AEM. Examples of suchnotifications are described above, for example in connection with theinformation used to populate sections 706 and 710 of FIG. 9.

Information can be pushed to the AEM from a partner website and/orvendor website, directly or indirectly. Such information may includeuser-relevant information. Examples may include a new VAR service thatis available, a recently discovered problem or security update that auser may want to know about, and the like. The information pushed to theAEM may be user-relevant information determined in accordance with theuser profile data. The user profile data may be collected based on userinteractions at the vendor and/or partner websites, data included incontext information transmitted from various interactions with the AEM,data initially provided when the user makes a first purchase or acquiresa first license with the partner or vendor. The user profile may includecontext-related history information for each user. Based on a user'sprofile, relevant information may be selected from the vendor and/orpartner websites and the user may be provided notifications or alertsregarding the existence of the relevant information. For example, a usermay perform operations on the vendor and/or partner website related toprovisioning data storage system for an application. Subsequently, asnew relevant information about provisioning data storage for theapplication on the vendor's data storage system becomes available, theuser may be notified by pushing relevant notifications to the AEM whichare presented to the user when the user logs into the AEM. For example,there may be new offerings regarding services, training, versions orupdates of software for use with the particular application, onlinepublications on the application or usage of features, known or seriousproblems related to the application, and the like. When such informationbecomes available on the vendor and/or partner website, the informationrelevant for the particular user may be pushed to the AEM. Thus, inaccordance with one aspect of the techniques herein, targeted orselected information may be provided to the AEM which is customized forthe particular users based on a previous history of user information asmay be included in the user profile information for the users. Theselection of information pushed to the AEM may be based on previouslyobserved patterns of usage at the vendor and/or partner website andprevious context information provided by the AEM.

In one embodiment, RSS technology may be used to provide information tothe AEM from the one or more external websites or other environments.For example, RSS technology may be used to supply news, new productupdates, new services, critical support information, and the like, asillustrated in providing notifications of 706 and 710 of FIG. 9. RSS maybe characterized as a family of web feeds used to publish frequentlyupdated contents such as blogs and news feeds. An RSS document mayinclude summary or full text information from the website providing thecontent, such as the website hosting the blog, news service, and thelike. A feed reader or aggregator program may be included in the datastorage system or the management system (16 of FIG. 1) which receivespublished information from the content provider. The feed reader maythen obtain the updated information from the one or more contentproviders, for example, by periodically polling the content providersfor any new content. As an example, a user may register with a usercommunity on a VAR website. In connection with the registration, theuser may select to receive information on new postings in an online userforum or blog, new electronic paper publications, and the like. When theuser logs into AEM, the user may receive notifications regarding the newpostings in the blog and new electronic paper publications. Using anRSS-based implementation, a web feed, such as in the form of an XMLdocument, may be transmitted from the VAR to the data storage systemincluding the AEM. The web feed document may include hyperlinks to thefull content of the paper, blog entries, and the like, on the VARwebsite. The hyperlinks may be initially displayed such as in areas 706and 710 of FIG. 9 and used to provide connection to the complete contentwhen a user makes a selection from the notification displayed.

The techniques herein of the bidirectional information flow between thedata storage system and one or more external environments may be used tofacilitate and enrich the customer's experience using the data storagesystem by automatically connecting to the one or more externalenvironments in connection with various operations and tasks, such aswhen an error occurs on the data storage system when the user isperforming data storage administration tasks. The AEM may be used toautomatically connect to the appropriate target location based on thecurrent context of the data storage system, such as the particular errorexperienced or other status of the data storage system. The AEM mayautomatically provide context information describing the current contextof the data storage system to the external environment and targetlocation therein to which the AEM connects. Additional context-relatedinformation as may be included in user profile information for theparticular user may also be utilized by the external environment, suchas website of the partner and/or vendor. The techniques herein may beused in connection with facilitating support operations, such as byproviding context information and automatic connection to chat orinteractive support, relevant knowledge or data bases and relevantonline or virtual user communities. In connection with providing supportfor vendor and/or partner products and services, various alerts ornotifications may be provided to the AEM regarding new service andtraining offerings, product updates or upgrades, relevant technicaltips, new postings in user communities, security alerts or problems aswell as relevant solutions (e.g., patches), electronic paperpublications, and the like. The techniques herein may also be used tofacilitate electronic commerce transactions. For example, in connectionwith resource consumption alerts, such as the low amount of availablestorage alert included in 705 of FIG. 9, the user may be connected toone or more appropriate target locations, such as customer support orthe vendor or partner online store, to facilitate the purchase ofadditional data storage. A user may also be notified regarding relevantupgrades, new products, new services and other offerings as may beavailable for purchase in connection with facilitating electroniccommerce. Such notifications may be selected in accordance with the userprofile information and pushed to the AEM for display, for example asillustrated in area 706 of FIG. 9, when the user logs into the AEM.

What will now be described in more detail is utilizing the techniquesherein of the bidirectional flow of information from the customer datastorage system to external environments in connection with virtual usercommunities. This is described in some detail above as one aspect ofproviding user support. The AEM captures context information about thedata storage system and current user and provides this contextinformation to an external environment, such as a vendor or partnerwebsite, hosting a user community. The techniques herein may be used inproviding a bidirectional flow of information between the externalenvironments hosting the user communities and the data storage systemincluding the AEM that is customized for the particular user. As anexample, a user community may exist on a partner or vendor website forcustomers provisioning data storage for a Microsoft® Exchange server.The user community may include blogs, FAQs, knowledge bases, solutions,electronically published papers, and the like as described elsewhereherein relevant to provisioning data storage for this particular emailapplication server. Different users may be ranked within the usercommunities based on a favorable number or postings. The foregoing andother activities may be made available to a user on the data storagesystem and facilitated using the techniques herein with the AEM.

Referring to FIG. 11, shown is an example of the data flow that mayoccur between the customer data storage system 910 and the vendor and/orpartner websites. The data flow of FIG. 11 is similar to that asgenerally described in connection with FIG. 5. The example 900illustrates the flow of information with respect to the user communitiesthat may be hosted on the websites 902 and 904 in that the user loggedinto the AEM on the system 910 may communicate directly with usercommunities on the vendor website 902 and/or the partner website 904.The AEM 920 may be used to automatically launch and provide a connectionto a user community 902 a or 904 a. The AEM 920 may provide the contextinformation as described elsewhere herein in connection with userinteractions with the user communities. The context information providedwhen connecting with the user communities may include, for example, auser identifier for the current AEM user, license information, datastorage configuration information, recently viewed or selected items(e.g., based on recent user community activity, items selected inaccordance with notifications provided as illustrated in 706 and 710 ofFIG. 9), applications which are currently hosting storage on the datastorage system to indicate how the storage is being used to direct userto potentially relevant user communities (e.g., how to configure storagefor use with a particular email application, database application), andthe like.

Referring to FIG. 12, shown is an example of the data flow that mayoccur between the customer data storage system 960 and the vendor and/orpartner websites. The data flow of FIG. 12 is similar to that asgenerally described in connection with FIG. 4 in which the data storagesystem 960 may communicate with partner website 954. In turn, thepartner website may be used to facilitate communications with a usercommunity located on the vendor website 952. The foregoing illustrateshow the user may be indirectly connected to a user community 952 athrough the partner website 954.

In connection with the bidirectional data flow described herein, the AEMmay be used to provide information from user communities to the user andto allow a user to interact with the user communities. The user mayinteract with the AEM as the active launching point and communicationpoint between the data storage system and the user communities hosted inthe vendor and/or partner websites, and information related to theparticular user and user community may be communicated using thebidirectional communication path as described herein.

As illustrated in connection with FIG. 9 described above, a user mayreceived selected or targeted information from user communities ofinterest to the user. The particular user communities of interest to theuser may include those which the user has expressly indicated as beinginterested such as through user community registration or participation.Particular user communities that may be of interest may be determinedindirectly or inferred, for example, using context information (e.g.,application information 508 of FIG. 6), by observing user interactionsand web surfing activities at the vendor and/or partner website (e.g.,as may be recorded in the user profile information for the user), andthe like. The information regarding user communities of interest may bein the form of alerts or notifications as included in 706 and/or 710 ofFIG. 9. For example, a user may log onto the AEM and receive a messageor UI notification that a new topic is posted in user forum X that theuser is registered for, regarding commonly received errors or problems(e.g., when performing particular data storage management operations foran application) and associated corrections (e.g., manual correction orvia a particular upgrade, software patch, etc.), or regarding how toobtain better performance for a particular application hosting data on avendor's data storage system (e.g., by performing an operation at a lowlevel such as 110 of FIG. 2 for a particular vendor's data storagesystem), and the like. If the user selects the displayed UInotification, the user may be automatically launched from the AEM andconnected into the user community. The context information provided bythe AEM may include any user authentication information needed to loginto the user forum. Activities regarding the user's participation inthe forum and other offerings of the user community may be monitored anddata collected and stored in the user profile information for the user.

A user may also navigate directly into the user community from a webbrowser on another computer system without utilizing the AEM. In otherwords, the user may connect to the user community using the techniquesherein with the AEM as well as without utilizing the AEM. In suchinstances where the user interacts with the user community without goingthrough the AEM, activities of the user while logged into the usercommunity may be monitored and additional data added to the user profileinformation as may be stored on the partner and/or vendor website.

Referring to FIG. 13, shown is an example illustrating the various waysin which a user may connect and interact with a user community. In theexample 1000, a user, user1, may connect in a first session 1006 from acomputer system 1004 via web browser 1004 a to the user community 1002 aof the website 1002. The website 1002 may be a partner or vendorwebsite. User profile information 1012 may be recorded regarding theuser1's activities in community 1002 a for the first session 1006. At asecond point in time, user1 may connect to user community 1002 a insecond session 1008 directly from the management system 16 without goingthrough the AEM 1020. User profile information 1012 may be recordedregarding the user1's activities in community 1002 a for the secondsession 1008. At a third point in time, the same user1 may connect tothe user community 1002 a in a third session 1010 utilizing the AEM 1020of the data storage system 1024 and the web browser 1022. User profileinformation 1012 may be recorded regarding the user1's activities incommunity 1002 a for the third session 1010. As such, the user profile1012 for the user1 may include aggregated information regarding the usercommunity activity in all three session both with and without utilizingthe AEM 1020. When the user connects to the user community 1002 athrough the AEM, authentication information allowing user access to thewebsite 1002 and user community may be entered automatically on behalfof the user (e.g., stored on AEM and automatically supplied whenaccessing website 1002). When connecting from the computer system 1004without using the AEM, the user may MANUALLY enter authenticationinformation when accessing the website 1002. The website 1002 may storehistorical use information regarding user community activitiesindependent of how a user connects to the website. When on the AEM, theuser may navigate directly to the user community 1002 a through linksand UI indicators (e.g., in area 710 of FIG. 9). Using the techniquesherein, a determination that a user community may be of interest to auser may be determined in accordance with one of more of the followingtypes of information: context information provided by the AEM such asthe application information 508 of FIG. 6, user activity on the partnerand/or vendor website (e.g., website query, selection of particularelectronic paper publications, etc.), and express registration in usercommunities. The first type of information may be used to provide a userwith an initial list of what user communities may be of interest pushingrelevant notification information to the AEM without the user everhaving participated or registered for a user community. Once a userregisters and/or participates in a user community, the user may benotified about new information related to the user community as itbecomes available. The notifications may selectively notify the user ofnew information based on user community participation. For example, if auser selects an electronic paper for download, the user may be notifiedof related electronic publications, technical tips, new postings inrelevant user forums, and the like. A user may explicitly sign up toreceive notifications regarding new postings in selected blogs, userforums, and the like, as may be included in a user community.Alternatively, a user may receive such notifications based oninformation inferred from previous activities as recorded in the userprofile and/or communicated in the context information from the AEM.

Referring to FIG. 14, shown is an example of user community informationas may be included in the user profile information. With reference toFIG. 7A, exemplary types of user profile information are illustratedincluding user community information 640. The example 1050 illustratesin more detail what may comprise the user community information 640 inone embodiment. The element 1052 may represent the user profileinformation for all users as may be stored on the partner website. Theuser profile information 1052 may include a portion 1054 of user profileinformation for each user. In this example, the element 1054 representsthe user profile data for user ID1. The user community information foruser ID1 is indicated by 1055. Data is recorded in 1055 for eachcommunity that user ID1 is registered for. In this example, user ID1 maybe registered with two user communities 1056 and 1058. Element 1060illustrates in more detail what may comprise the data recorded in theuser profile for each user community data set 1056 and 1058. For eachuser community, the following may be recorded as indicated in 1060: usercommunity name 1060 a, start date of community membership 1060 b, numberof postings 1060 c, and information regarding most recent user communityactivity 1070. Element 1070 may include a set of information 1072 foreach user community activity recorded. The set of information 1072 mayinclude the date, activity type, and details regarding the activity. Theactivity type may indicate whether the user activity was a query,posting, paper download, database access, such as to the FAQ ortechnical tips database. Details regarding the activity may varydepending on the activity and may include query terms, an indicator asto whether a posting was a question or response, a posting number in theblog or user forum, a name of a paper downloaded, and the like. Theinformation included in 1060 may also include any ranking a user mayhave in the community, such as in connection with a number of correct orfavorable responses entered by the user ID1. Such a ranking may be anindication regarding the technical proficiency of the user ID1.Information such as the technical proficiency may be used in connectionwith determining relevant information or notifications pushed by thewebsite to the data storage system for presentation to the user whenlogged onto the AEM. For example, if the user is ranked as a noviceuser, one set of new electronic publications may be relevant. Incontrast, if the user has a high level of proficiency, a different setof electronic publications may be relevant to the user. The user may beprovided by the website with notifications regarding new user communityinformation in accordance with the level of proficiency as well as otherinformation included in the user profile. As another example, user ID1may be ranked as a novice user based on user community participation.Based on the proficiency ranking and other activity information (e.g.,query terms, previous white papers downloaded, and the like), the userID1 may be provided with notifications regarding additional usercommunity postings and newly acquired information to direct the user tothe appropriate resources.

The AEM and bidirectional information flow may be used herein for usercommunities in which the information flow is customized for theparticular user. The AEM may facilitate communications with the usercommunities located in external environments, such as vendor and/orpartner website, in an automated fashion.

Referring to FIG. 15, shown is an example 1101 illustrating the dataflow as may be used to determine user-relevant information 1110 pushedfrom the external environment, such as the vendor and/or partnerwebsite, to the customer's data storage system. The user profile data1100 may be used in connection with selecting current information on thevendor and/or partner websites about which the user is notified via theAEM. The elements 1102, 1104 and 1106 may represent collectively or inthe aggregate the different types of information that may be availableregarding the vendor and/or partner website. The data in 1100 may beused to select relevant portions of 1102, 1104 and 1106 about which auser is notified. As described herein, the notifications may be pushedto the AEM and displayed to the user when logged into the AEM. The usercommunity activity 1102 may include information about different usercommunities on the website(s) such as electronic papers, relevanttechnical tips, product/service reviews, and the like. Commercialinformation 1104 may include new product and/or service offerings suchas new hardware, software, services, training, license renewals, supportcontract renewal, support services such as telephone and interactivechat, upgrades available for purchase, targeted and general discounts onany of the foregoing, electronic sales offerings at an online or regularstore, and the like. Other website information 1106 may include generalwebsite information such as the different categories of information asdescribed in FIG. 8, relevant update/upgrade information, securityalerts, alerts regarding new problems and/or solutions of a generalnature, and the like. Processing may be performed as indicated by 1108to select relevant portions of 1102, 1104 and 1106 in accordance withthe user profile data 1100 about which the user is notified. Theuser-relevant information 1110 may represent the selected relevantportions from 1102, 1104 and 1106.

Referring to FIG. 16, shown is an example of how the user-relevantinformation pushed to the AEM may be used by the AEM. In the example1150, the user relevant information 1110 may be read by the AEM 1154 toprovide notifications to the user as described elsewhere herein (e.g.,as illustrated in FIG. 9). In connection with operations and activitieson the data storage system including the AEM 1154, the AEM mayfacilitate communications with external environments, such as partnerand/or vendor websites, and provide relevant context information 1156.

Referring to FIG. 17, shown is an example illustrating how the AEM maybe configured to connect to a variety of different locations inaccordance with the context information of the data storage system andprovide such context information to the target locations. In thisexample, the management system is omitted for simplicity ofillustration. The example 1200 illustrates the data flow from the datastorage system 1204 to various target locations although information mayalso flow from the target locations and their external environments tothe data storage system as described elsewhere herein in connection withproviding user-relevant information 1110 and subsequent userinteractions.

In the example 1200, the AEM may be configured to connect to one of avariety of different target locations and environments depending on thecurrent context information. This example illustrates the AEM connectingto different target locations in accordance with the error or statusvalue, for example, as included in 506 of FIG. 6. It should be notedthat this example illustrates a partner that is a VAR. Support relatedto VAR products and services may be provided online through website1210. In this example, the VAR may contract with a third party toprovide online support services for the VAR. If an error occurs on thedata storage system related to VAR hardware and/or software products,the data storage system 1204 may display a UI indicator. Upon selectionof the UI indicator, the user logged into the AEM of the data storagesystem 1204 may be connected to the website 1210 as indicated by 1242.If an error or status condition occurs the indicates a VAR componentfailure for selected components, such as power supply, the data storagesystem 1204 may display a UI indicator. Upon selection of the UIindicator, the user logged into the AEM of the data storage system 1204may be connected to the VAR website 1220. In particular, the user loggedinto the AEM of the data storage system 1204 may be directly connectedto the online store 1222 within the VAR website 1220. If a resourceconsumption alert occurs indicating low available storage as illustratedelsewhere herein, a UI indicator may be accordingly displayed. Uponselection of the UI indicator, the user logged into the AEM of the datastorage system 1204 may be connected to the vendor website 1230. Inparticular, the user logged into the AEM of the data storage system 1204may be directly connected to the online store 1232 within the vendorwebsite 1230. The AEM 1202 may provide context information relevant foruse by the target locations. The target locations may also utilize theuser profile information as described herein for the user currentlylogged into the AEM 1202 for the particular data storage system 1204.For example, user profile information may indicate the previous datastorage purchases in the past year. Such information may be used by thevendor website 1230, for example, in presenting or recommendingparticular storage devices to the user. If the user has been adding alot of small capacity devices in the recent few months, this activitymay be noted and the user may be presented with larger capacity storagedevice options along with a message indicating the recent purchase ofsmall capacity devices which seems to have been utilized at a rapidrate. At the current rate of storage usage, the larger capacity devices,along with any discounts or deals, may be presented to the user.

The foregoing example 1200 illustrates how the techniques herein may beused to facilitate different types of transactions and operationsranging from electronic commerce to support.

Referring to FIG. 18, shown is another example illustrating use of thetechniques herein. In this example, the management system is omitted forsimplicity of illustration. In the example 1250, user-relevantinformation may be pushed from the VAR website 1220 and vendor website1230 to the data storage system 1204. The information pushed from thewebsite 1220 may be represented by 1254 a regarding upcoming relevantVAR training offerings. The user may be presented with notificationsregarding the information of 1254 a as illustrated in FIG. 9 with a UIindicator that may be selected. When selected, the UI indicator mayprovide a direct connection to the VAR training website 1210 asindicated by 1254 b along with relevant context information.

The information pushed from the website 1230 may be represented by 1252a regarding upcoming relevant vendor training offerings. The user may bepresented with notifications regarding the information of 1252 a asillustrated in FIG. 9 with a UI indicator that may be selected. Whenselected, the UI indicator may provide a direct connection to the vendorwebsite 1230 as indicated by 1252 b along with relevant contextinformation

In one embodiment in connection with various training offerings asillustrated in FIG. 18, the context information pushed from the AEM tothe websites 1210 and 1230 may include a user identifier of the AEMuser, applications hosting data on the data storage system, errorinformation (e.g., regarding the rate and/or types of errors receivedwhen performing particular data storage configuration or provisioningoperations for an application), license information regarding licensedproducts to assist in directing a user to appropriate courses based oninstalled products, user community information to assist in directing auser to relevant training, and the like. The website receiving thecontext information may use one or more of the foregoing portions ofcontext information and/or user profile information to provide relevantofferings for display to the user. When the AEM is facilitatingconnection to a website regarding relevant training, the contextinformation provided may also omit one or more types of information. Inconnection with this and other operations, the context information mayinclude relevant vendor-specific and/or partner-specific information.For example, the context information provided to one or more of thewebsites illustrated in FIG. 18 may include vendor-specific installedfeatures or products. If the vendor-specific information is not relevantto the VAR training offerings, such information may be omitted from thecontext information provided to 1210 but included in the contextinformation provided to 1230. Similarly, if VAR-specific productinformation regarding hardware and/or software licensed and/or installedon 1204 is relevant only for VAR training, then the VAR-specificinformation may be included in the context information provided by theAEM 1202 to 1210, but may not be included in the context informationprovided by the AEM 1202 to 1230.

As another example, the UI indicator regarding low storage previouslydescribed in connection with FIG. 17 may connect to one of the websitesand provide a list of relevant training such as, for example, to learnhow to add additional storage devices, modify a current configuration toobtain better performance as available storage capacity is consumed, andthe like.

In connection with a state of the data storage system as may beindicated by context information, the techniques herein may be used tofacilitate electronic commercial transactions. FIG. 17 illustrates oneexemplary use for resource consumption alerts and FIG. 18 illustratesanother exemplary use for additional offerings regarding training. Thesame techniques, for example as illustrated in FIG. 18, may be used inconnection with selecting and presenting to the user in accordance withuser profile information, relevant user information for services,additional hardware and/or software, enabling additional features ofexisting software (e.g., by modifying licensing terms and provisions),and the like.

As illustrated in FIG. 17, different resources, such as availablestorage as well as other resources (e.g., current battery or backuppower supply charge), may be monitored and the user may be provided withnotification (e.g. resource consumption alert) when the resourceavailability falls below a threshold amount. Different alerts may begenerated for different threshold levels associated with the sameresource. In connection with the resource consumption alert related toavailable or free disk storage as illustrated in FIG. 17, a user may bepresented with a UI indicator which, when selected, directly connects toan online store 1232 and presents the user with a list of disks that canbe purchased for use with customer's current data storage system basedon user's context information and user profile (e.g., current usagepatterns—how much new storage added in last n months or other timeperiod, what is compatible with current customer data storage system andconfiguration). In connection with monitoring the data storage systemand providing notifications or alerts, other examples include watchingfor soft errors or other conditions typically indicative of pendingfailure and prompting the user with a UI notification. The UInotification may notify the user regarding the observed behavior andinquire as to whether the user wants to order a replacement part.

In connection with the techniques herein, the context informationregarding the data storage system and particular user as recorded in theuser profile may be used to leverage sales of particular services,products, and the like, that may relevant to the user. Any purchasesmade online may be recorded in the user profile information.

The techniques herein may be used to facilitate a variety of differentoperations and interactions. The user is interacting with the AEM which,in connection with the techniques herein, as connectivity to externalenvironments and provides for a bidirectional communication path betweenthe AEM and external environments.

As described herein, the AEM may be customized by the partner sellingthe data storage system. Such customization may include directing theAEM to particular websites in accordance with different status or errorconditions, collecting additional information for use in connection withVAR or other partner-provided components associated with an error orstatus condition and the like. The AEM may be customized in accordancewith the particular business practices and arrangements of the partnerwith third parties and the vendor. For example, the AEM may collect afirst set of generic data which may be characterized as vendor-specific.The AEM may be customized to collect additional data for use inconnection with user communities, support services, e-commerce, and thelike as described herein, with VAR-specific products and services. TheVAR or other partner may control and regulate the flow of information ina variety of different ways. For example, for one particular status orerror, the AEM may connect to one particular website supported by theVAR. If VAR is contracting or outsourcing support services to a thirdparty, the VAR may direct the AEM to contact (e.g., navigate to) a thirdparty website for support issues and otherwise navigate to the VARwebsite.

Referring to FIGS. 19 and 20, shown are flowcharts summarizingprocessing as may be performed in connection with the techniques hereinas described above. At step 1302, a user logs into the AEM. In step1304, the AEM may read in user-relevant information as selected andtransmitted from one or more external environments to the data storagesystem. In one embodiment, step 1304 may include reading notificationsas provided by the vendor and/or partner websites related to products,services, user communities, and the like. FIG. 9 provides some examplesof the types of notifications as may be provided and displayed to theuser in step 1306. Additionally, as part of step 1306, other statusinformation regarding the data storage system may be obtained andincluded in the displayed information (e.g., general data storage systemhealth, resource consumption alerts, and the like). At step 1308, theAEM waits for a user selection or operation. Once a user makes aselection to perform an operation from the displayed interface, controlproceeds to step 1310. At step 1310 a determination is made as towhether the user selection involves making a connection to an externalenvironment, such as a website of a vendor and/or partner. If not,control proceeds to step 1312 such as when performing a data storageprovisioning operation. If step 1310 evaluates to yes, control proceedsto step 1314 where processing is performed by the active managementcomponent 130 of FIG. 2 to facilitate communications with the externalenvironment. At step 1314, the context information is collected andprepared for transmission to the target location in the externalenvironment. In step 1316, the context information is transmitted to thetarget location and the user is connected to the target location. Instep 1352, the context data is received at the target location.Additional information may be extracted from the user profile.Information may be displayed to the user in accordance with thetransmitted context information and/or user profile information. Forexample, as illustrated in FIG. 10, a message may be displayed to theuser in 804 regarding the resource consumption alert indicated in thetransmitted context information. As another example, a query may beperformed of the available data storage devices to display to the userselected ones in a relevance ordering determined in accordance with thecontext information and user profile information (e.g., storage capacityand types compatible with the customer's current configuration). At step1356, one or more other interactions may be performed with the user.This may include, for example, navigating to other web pages, displayingadditional information to the user and/or obtaining additional inputfrom the user. At step 1358, the user profile information is updated inaccordance with the transmitted context data and interactions of steps1356.

The user-relevant information that may be pushed to the data storagesystem for use by the AEM is described above, for example, in connectionwith FIG. 15.

The techniques herein may be performed by executing code which is storedon any one or more different forms of computer-readable media.Computer-readable media may include different forms of volatile (e.g.,RAM) and non-volatile (e.g., ROM, flash memory, magnetic or opticaldisks, or tape) storage which may be removable or non-removable.

The techniques herein may be used in connection with any operationperformed by the AEM 120 of FIG. 2. As described herein, exemplaryoperations may include performing data storage system managementoperations including data storage configuration requests such as datastorage provisioning as well as monitoring and other operationsassociated with management of the devices of the data storage system.

It should be noted that as described herein, the AEM may facilitateautomatically connecting to an external environment, and even aparticular target location in the external environment. As part of thisprocess, the AEM may provide the user identifier as part of the contextinformation. The user identifier may be used, for example, as part ofuser authentication for the user of the AEM to connect to the externalenvironment. For example, the user may be prompted to enter additionalinformation as part of the authentication process to connect to avirtual user community, gain access to a partner or vendor site, and thelike. In connection with a target location, a password may not berequired, for example, if connecting to a public website withoutrestricting access to particular users. In such instances, the useridentifier included in the context information pushed to the websitefrom the AEM may be used to track additional activities incorporatedinto the user profile information associated with the user identifier.Connecting to an external environment, such as a website provided by oneof the vendors or data storage suppliers, may provide connection to oneor more server computer system located at the particular website. Codemay be executed on the one or more server computer systems in connectionwith performing the techniques described herein such as, for example,determining the user relevant information in accordance with the userprofile information stored on a data storage device accessible to theserver systems.

The techniques herein may be used to facilitate communication betweenthe AEM and an external environment, such as a website, for electroniccommerce purchases, upgrades, and other transactions. As describedherein, the AEM may be used to monitor for failures of differentcomponents, such as different hardware component failures or signs ofpending failure, and provide notification to the user. Pending failuremay be determined, for example, by the AEM observing over time one ormore types of errors of a component commonly known to indicate pendingfailure. The AEM may also be used to monitor data storage systemsresources, such as data storage devices and components (e.g., batterbackup power supply levels), in accordance with defined threshold levelsand provide notification to the user when the resource levels fallsbelow the specified threshold. For example, as illustrated herein, theAEM may monitor the amount of available disk storage and providenotification to the user when the amount falls below a threshold level.The threshold levels may be configurable, for example, by the partner aspart of AEM configuration. The threshold levels may also be configurableby a user. By monitoring the data storage system for the occurrence of athreshold level, component failure, or other criteria, the AEM mayprovide notification of the particular event to the user, for example,via a user interface indicator 705 of FIG. 9. The user may then selectthe indicator and be connected by the AEM to a target location in anexternal environment, such as an online store at a vendor and/or partnerwebsite, to make a relevant purchase. Thus, the techniques herein withthe AEM may be used to facilitate electronic commerce by, for example,ordering disk drives as before remaining storage capacity is used to apredetermined level, ordering replacement components on detection offailure and/or pending failure, renewing a license or support contractprior to expiration, and the like.

As described herein, the AEM may be used to facilitate a bi-directionalinformation flow between the AEM and one or more external environments,such as one or more websites of a vendor and/or partner. Thebi-directional information flow may be used in connection withperforming a variety of different tasks and operations such as relatedto, for example, interactive automated support, electronic commerce,and/or virtual user communities. The AEM provides context information toenrich the task, operation, and the like, being facilitated using thebi-directional information flow. The context information is achieved inconnection with data gathered regarding functions performed by anelement manager as users manage and provision the storage. The AEM mayuse the data storage system to collect information as managementoperations are performed thereon (e.g., for data storage configuration,provisioning, monitoring and the like) for obtaining the contextinformation provided by the AEM to an external environment. As describedherein, the AEM may also receive information from one or more externalenvironments, such as the websites of vendors and/or partners, as partof the bi-directional information flow to facilitate tasks such asinteractive automated support and electronic commerce. The informationreceived may be the user-relevant information provided to the AEM aswell as other information exchanged as part of the bi-directionalinformation flow. In connection with electronic commerce, the techniquesherein may be used to facilitate interactions between the AEM and anexternal environment, such as the vendor or partner website, for initialpurchase, renewal, extension, or upgrade for support agreements,warranties, and the like.

While the invention has been disclosed in connection with preferredembodiments shown and described in detail, their modifications andimprovements thereon will become readily apparent to those skilled inthe art. Accordingly, the spirit and scope of the present inventionshould be limited only by the following claims.

1. A computer-implemented method for performing data storage systemmanagement of a data storage system, the method comprising: providing anactive element manager component that performs data storage systemmanagement operations in connection with a data storage device of thedata storage system, said data storage management operations includingprovisioning storage of the data storage system for an application inresponse to a received request; collecting, using said active elementmanager component, context information, said context informationincluding information about a current state of the data storage systemand including any error condition resulting from provisioning storage ofthe data storage system in response to the received request; receivinguser relevant information by said active element manager component froman external environment which has connectivity to said data storagesystem and is external with respect to a data storage system environmentincluding said data storage system, said user relevant informationincluding information about a virtual user community included in saidexternal environment which is relevant to a first user identifier; anddisplaying, for an active element management session having said firstuser identifier, said user relevant information via a user interface,said user interface providing for display a first portion of said userrelevant information about said virtual user community and a firstconnection to said external environment, wherein, upon selection of saidfirst portion, said active element manager component connects to atarget location associated with said virtual user community in saidexternal environment and provides said context information to saidexternal environment, wherein said first portion of said user relevantinformation is determined in accordance with user community informationof the first user identifier, the user community information includingquery terms of one or more prior queries made by the first useridentifier within said virtual user community, electronic papersdownloaded by said first user identifier, and a technical level ofproficiency of said first user identifier within said virtual usercommunity for said application having its data stored on the datastorage system, said technical level of proficiency being determinedusing recorded activity information of said first user identifier, saidrecorded activity information indicating participation by said firstuser identifier in said virtual user community and including aproficiency ranking indicating a number of correct or favorableresponses of the first user identifier posted in response to questionsof other user identifiers of said virtual user community, said recordedactivity information and said application being specified in userprofile information for said first user identifier.
 2. The method ofclaim 1, wherein said virtual user community includes one or moresources of information about topics of interest to members of saidvirtual user community, and said first portion of said relevantinformation includes data about one of said sources.
 3. The method ofclaim 2, wherein said one or more sources include at least one of: ablog, a user question and answer forum, electronic paper publications,and a source of technical information.
 4. The method of claim 1, whereinsaid virtual user community is related to at least one of: a vendor ofthe data storage system, an application having data storage hosted onthe data storage system, a supplier of the data storage system, and thedata storage system in combination with at least one hardware orsoftware product of a value added reseller of the data storage system.5. The method of claim 1, wherein said context information includes saidfirst user identifier used in connection with connecting to saidexternal environment upon selection of said first portion.
 6. The methodof claim 1, further comprising: determining said user relevantinformation in accordance with said user profile information for saidfirst user identifier.
 7. The method of claim 6, wherein said externalenvironment is a website provided by one of a vendor or a supplier ofthe data storage system, and said user relevant information isdetermined by a computer system accessed at said website using said userprofile information for said first user identifier.
 8. The method ofclaim 7, further comprising: connecting, using said first useridentifier, to said virtual user community in a first session from afirst computer; storing information about said first session in userprofile information associated with said first user identifier;connecting, using said first user identifier, to said virtual usercommunity in a second session from said data storage system using saidactive element manager component; and storing information about saidsecond session in said user profile information associated with saidfirst user identifier.
 9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:registering, using said first user identifier in one of said first orsaid second sessions, as a member of said virtual user community; andstoring information regarding said registering in said user profileinformation for said first user identifier.
 10. The method of claim 9,wherein said registering includes selecting to receive notificationsregarding one or more sources of information in said virtual usercommunity.
 11. The method of claim 10, wherein said registering includesselecting to receive notification on at least one of postings in a userforum or blog, electronic paper publications, reported problems andtechnical solutions.
 12. The method of claim 11, wherein the firstportion is an indicator for an item about which said first useridentifier is being notified, and said first connection is a hyperlinkto corresponding content for said item.
 13. The method of claim 6,wherein said user relevant information is determined using usercommunity information included in said user profile information for saidfirst user identifier, said user community information includinginformation about one or more virtual user communities to which saidfirst user identifier is registered as a member.
 14. The method of claim13, wherein said user community information for said first useridentifier includes at least one of a user community name, a start dateof membership for said first user identifier in said user communityname, a number of postings by said first user identifier, andinformation about recent activities of said first user identifier insaid user community name.
 15. A data storage system comprising acomputer readable medium with code stored thereon for performing activeelement management, the computer readable medium comprising code for:performing, by an active element manager component, a data storagesystem management operation in connection with a data storage device ofthe data storage system, said data storage management operationincluding provisioning storage of the data storage system for anapplication in response to a received request, wherein a user issuingsaid received request interacts with said active element managercomponent at one of a plurality of levels, each of said plurality oflevels providing a different level of abstraction in connection withperforming said data storage management operation, each of saidplurality of levels being in accordance with a different level ofproficiency and knowledge for performing said data storage managementoperation; collecting, by said active element manager component, contextinformation, said context information including information about acurrent state of the data storage system in connection with said datastorage system management operation and including any error conditionresulting from provisioning storage of the data storage system inresponse to the received request; providing, from said data storagesystem, said context information to a website for one of a vendor of thedata storage system or a supplier of the data storage system; inresponse to an input selection on a user interface, connecting, by saidactive element manager component, a current session associated with saiddata storage system management operation to said website and, inresponse to said input selection, performing said providing said contextinformation, said active element manager component facilitatingbi-directional communications directly with said website, said websiteincluding a virtual user community; and receiving user relevantinformation at said active element manager component from said website,said user relevant information including information about the virtualuser community hosted at said website which is relevant to a first useridentifier associated with said current session, wherein said userrelevant information is determined in accordance with user communityinformation of the first user identifier, the user community informationincluding query terms of one or more prior queries made by the firstuser identifier within said virtual user community, electronic papersdownloaded by said first user identifier, and a technical level ofproficiency of said first user identifier within said virtual usercommunity for said application having its data stored on the datastorage system, said technical level of proficiency being determinedusing recorded activity information of said first user identifier saidrecorded activity information indicating participation by said firstuser identifier in said virtual user community and including aproficiency ranking indicating a number of correct or favorableresponses of the first user identifier posted in response to questionsof other user identifiers of said virtual user community, said recordedactivity information and said application being specified in userprofile information for said first user identifier.
 16. Acomputer-readable medium comprising code stored thereon for performingdata storage system management of a data storage system, thecomputer-readable medium comprising code stored thereon for: providingan active element manager component that performs data storage systemmanagement operations in connection with a data storage device of thedata storage system, said data storage management operations includingprovisioning storage of the data storage system for an application inresponse to a received request; collecting, using said active elementmanager component, context information, said context informationincluding information about a current state of the data storage systemand including any error condition resulting from provisioning storage ofthe data storage system in response to the received request; receivinguser relevant information by said active element manager component froman external environment which has connectivity to said data storagesystem and is external with respect to a data storage system environmentincluding said data storage system, said user relevant informationincluding information about a virtual user community included in saidexternal environment which is relevant to a first user identifier; anddisplaying, for an active element management session having said firstuser identifier, said user relevant information via a user interface,said user interface providing for display a first portion of said userrelevant information about said virtual user community and a firstconnection to said external environment, wherein, upon selection of saidfirst portion, said active element manager component connects to atarget location associated with said virtual user community in saidexternal environment and provides said context information to saidexternal environment, wherein said first portion of said user relevantinformation is determined in accordance with user community informationof the first user identifier, the user community information includingquery terms of one or more prior queries made by the first useridentifier within said virtual user community, electronic papersdownloaded by said first user identifier, and a technical level ofproficiency of said first user identifier within said virtual usercommunity for said application having its data stored on the datastorage system, said technical level of proficiency being determinedusing recorded activity information of said first user identifier, saidrecorded activity information indicating participation by said firstuser identifier in said virtual user community and including aproficiency ranking indicating a number of correct or favorableresponses of the first user identifier posted in response to questionsof other user identifiers of said virtual user community, said recordedactivity information and said application being specified in userprofile information for said first user identifier.
 17. The computerreadable medium of claim 16, wherein the active element managercomponent is included in the data storage system.
 18. The computerreadable medium of claim 16, wherein said user relevant information isdetermined in accordance with user profile information for said firstuser identifier, and said external environment is a website provided byone of a vendor or a supplier of the data storage system, and said userrelevant information is determined by a computer system accessed at saidwebsite using said user profile information for said first useridentifier.
 19. The computer readable medium of claim 18, wherein saiduser relevant information is determined using user community informationincluded in said user profile information for said first useridentifier, said user community information including information aboutone or more virtual user communities to which said first user identifieris registered as a member.